If you are a caregiver of a PWA (Person With Aphasia) who has moderate to severe aphasia, this book should be extremely helpful if you want to maximize their progress. Ittleman indicates if a PWA can imitate even single words and understands what you are saying, his method should be effective. This is true even if a person also has apraxia, though profound apraxia will probably first require other methods. Although a chapter is devoted to working on mild aphasia, and it's a good chapter, the rest of the book is more appropriate for more significant aphasia issues.What I've Gotten Out of this Book:
1. Stimulate speech whenever you are together during the day. (My own Caveat: amount and timing need to be finessed so it's enough but
not too much for you both.)
2. Relax. Have fun. Use humor.
3. If your PWA is willing to work, they'll improve.
4. Be conscious of what you're stimulating for in terms of lengths of sentences.
5. Be aware of the need to slow down and enunciate slowly, especially words with more syllables.
6. Start easy. Work step by step for success at each step before making things more difficult.
7. Learn what mistakes to ignore.
8. Give your PWA positive feedback. If there are errors, rather than draw attention to them, suggest they try again.
This book is all practical. It's written so anyone should be able to understand. There is really no theory to get bogged down with. There are a lot of examples that anyone should be able to relate to. In addition, you're encouraged to work with relevant content, and especially in the beginning, words, phrases, or sentences that refer to your immediate environment.
If you are working with a therapist, hopefully, they've read this book and can help you put it into practice. If you aren't working with a therapist, you should probably be able to do much of what is suggested simply by reading the book. If this seems too much of a challenge, Ittleman's website, should be helpful including his videos. And he's also willing to either consult on-line with you or even answer your emailed queries. He's dedicated to spreading the work of how to do successful work on aphasia in your own home.
I wish this book had been available three years ago when my husband had his stroke and could hardly say anything. He has had lots of speech therapy, including an intensive program, and all have been helpful. But Ittleman's methods have truly seemed to make the most difference. We have chosen to also do some consulting time with him. For us, this works well, and his charges are reasonable, especially given the time and effort he puts into lesson planning, notes to you, and answers to emails. But for those of you who do well with applying material straight from a book, the book, with perhaps some emailed inquiries and looking at his site, should be enormously helpful.
Finally, this book doesn't address reading and writing issues. It focuses entirely on speech. If your PWA is like my husband and having difficulties with all three, it's probably better for quality of life for both of you to focus on speech. I guess exceptions would be if they seem to have more potential or interest in writing or reading than in speaking.
In the The Teaching of Talking, Mark Ittleman introduces his readers to a unique, practical, fun and easy method that can be used by anyone to encourage language comprehension and the ability to speak. In the book he refers to a person who has a speaking difficulty as a (PSD).
I am a Speech Language Pathologist who works with individuals with speaking problems as a result of strokes, brain injury, birth defects, developmental delay, cancer, etc. I have had an opportunity to personally be mentored by Mark for over 2 years. His passion is reflected in his extensive work with patients with aphasia, apraxia, dysarthria and various voice disorders as a Speech Language Pathologist. His work as an SLP for 40 years has brought him to develop ¬¬this extraordinary and revolutionary method to stimulate language in "real-life" activities, which promote speaking practice, using the actual act of speaking. The methods in the Teaching of Talking encourage speaking with a person who has a communication difficulty (PCD) about their interests, likes, dislikes, preferences, and anything else they would like to converse about, and is empowering. The methods in The Teaching of Talking involve the therapist, loved ones, caregivers and patients as a "team" by allowing them to be "present" and participating in the conversation, even when the PCD may not be "communicating" at a level like they did before.
The Teaching of Talking inspires you to look beyond traditional therapy, to the stimulation of talking at the PCD's level, whether it is single words, phrases or sentences and to improve language understanding and use in a gradual step by step fashion. In The Teaching of Talking, Mark provides a screening tool and information about the "tools of the trade" with very detailed and specific examples for every single technique, which made it easy for a novice therapist like me to learn. A loved one, family member, or caregiver can also readily learn them. Experienced speech pathologists would also benefit from The Teaching of Talking, as it can give their therapy a whole new dimension of fun and simplicity.
Anyone who is interested in helping one speak again can master the Teaching of Talking methods with this book and Mark's mentorship. It is apparent that the goal of this book is to form a group of individuals to master the art of stimulating clarity of speech and language in a simple, functional and meaningful context of daily living activities.
The beauty of these techniques is that ¬¬¬¬¬they are very easy, and can be done all day long, without a structured "homework" time. I have learned that caregiver and families are very compliant with the home program when it does not involve adding to their busy schedules in the burden of caring for their loved one. What a relief it was when I found myself actually enjoying therapy in a positive and encouraging environment, having fun, laughing, joking, and all the while stimulating language and having them speak back to me in single words, phrases and sentences, when weeks before only withdrawn silence.
Imagine the relief when you can tell your patient's spouse that he or she can help their loved one speak again while eating, showering, going to bed, getting, dressed, shopping, and all the fun activities they share daily! ¬¬¬¬The technique utilizes a model of errorless learning and positive reinforcement to modify the speech of the PSD to make it more accurate with each question and answer.
The Teaching of Talking and mentorship program will teach anyone to be as good as any speech therapist in stimulating language at home, at the grocery store, or anywhere else you can think of! I have recommended this book to several of my patients' families and will definitely continue to use this method in my practice. This book is hands-down the best resource for anyone working with a person who has a speech or language difficulty such as children with delayed speech and language development, or those with stroke, head injury and aphasia.
Buy The Teaching of Talking: Learn to Do Expert Speech Therapy at Home With Children and Adults Now
I wish I had read this book over 2 yrs ago when our daughter came home after a stroke and a 2 month coma.....she's had almost three years of traditional speech therapy, but as this book explains the magic happens at home with loved ones seven days a week. The book has so many tips from the very beginning of the process to progressively improving one's speech and understanding by drawing the subject out and helping them want and feel able to communicate with the outside world.....it ALL happens in everyday life with parents and loved ones....not an hour a week in "speech therapy" doing excercises from third grade workbooks (sorry therapists, you do help too but you can't achieve much in an hour or two a week.....we still love you!).This book is basically for the ones who lost voice/speaking-ability post-stroke or such scenarios, and is NOT for the ones who want to improve upon their speaking abilities or techniques or the articulation.Somehow no review (at least the ones, I had gone thru), neither the ToC could help me identify this. So this was definitely a wrong investment for me.
BTW, for the ones who lost ability to speak post-stroke, this book might help.Upon returning to the field of Speech Pathology after happily staying home to raise my children, I can honestly say that the "Teaching of Talking" is a groundbreaking book for therapists and families who have been impacted by TBI or stroke. It is a logical and simplistic system that will help therapists train caregivers, so that once therapy time is over these individuals will continue to make progress. With the possibility of major changes to healthcare we cannot look to the therapists, as people who will magically be able to make loved ones talk. It is unrealistic and Mark's book is the first realistic approach to making major gains in the speed of recovery from brain injury. Well written, organized and concise. He is an inspiration!
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